Millstone, Immobile
by ncfan
Summary: She had wanted nothing more than to grow stronger, but at the end of her life, she was a healer who couldn't heal herself. /Rin-centric./


Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

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She'd tried so hard to become stronger. And now, the fruits of her labors were scattered and burned all around her, a tree that would not bloom again.

Trapped in her immobile, failing body, only Rin's eyes moved anymore. She couldn't lift her fingers, couldn't work her legs, couldn't do anything when she was put on life support, put on a respirator and told she wouldn't live long.

Those moving eyes stung. It had only been three years since Obito had died, two since Sensei had gone. It was so soon, and Rin had never thought she would die like this, alone in a hospital room, Kakashi's visits becoming less and less frequent until they would inevitably stop entirely.

She had been left alone again.

Rin had struggled and fought her way towards the top in the year after Obito died, scrambling and clawing at any foothold she could find. She had always been told that her gender (in a misogynistic world, a kunoichi always had it harder), her birth and her ethnicity (Rin had been born in Tsuchi no Kuni; there was a high likelihood her parents—dead by the time she was two—had been Iwagakure shinobi) would always be a barrier to her, would always make it that much harder and might even make it impossible for her to rise above the rank of chunin.

Rin had never made jonin, but at the same time, she had never listened to her detractors either.

The fight had consumed her life; the tree had grown at a pace too fast and burned out as a result.

The Kyuubi had not helped. The noxious chakra of that hellish beast had seared her flesh, poisoned her blood, and ultimately signed her death warrant with a flourish of the bloody pen, uncaring that Rin was straining for life, that Rin didn't want to die, that Rin wanted to become stronger.

At least she had been better off than Sensei or Kushina or Obito; Rin had still been alive. At least, that was what Kakashi, Tsunade, Jiraiya and all others in the hospital had told her for the first few days after the Kyuubi's attack, when she had still been on bed rest and the pain was so great that she could not speak and all she could do was listen to those empty platitudes.

Her life as she knew it had ended two years ago when her career as a soldier was knocked brutally aside by the Fox.

Rin found herself a caretaker for Sensei's orphaned son, a baby who could not understand why the world hated him enough to both take his parents from him and make him the pariah of the village. A baby who could comprehend these things.

Rin had found it hard to love him, at first. Naruto was a charming child, who had developed slowly, but she could not help but think of the Fox every time she saw him. It had not been until the first time he scraped his knee and went sobbing to her that Rin had been able to love him.

Because he needed her, when everyone else backed away from her out of dread, because the shadow of Death clung to her wherever she went.

Now, Rin doubted anyone would care for Naruto. Kakashi showed every sign of withdrawing emotionally from the world around him, detaching himself from everyone in it, and Naruto was no exception.

No one would remember Rin after she died. She was as transparent as rain, unseen, unwanted. Her only legacy would be the guilt and corrosive grief Kakashi carried on his shoulders, and that was not a legacy Rin wanted.

She heard the whispers.

'_Pitiful'._

'_Foolish girl should never have tried so hard. Now look at her.'_

'_What sort of healer can't heal herself'?_

They believed she couldn't hear, but Rin had always heard everything. It was hard not to, when she was partially blamed for Obito's death, when Sensei had always confided in her even when she didn't want him to and Rin had had such good hearing.

Lying on the hospital bed, listening to the heart monitor tick down the moments, those moving eyes watered.

Rin had wanted nothing more than to grow stronger.

But at the end of her life, she was a millstone around the necks of those whom she loved.

At the end of her life, she was helpless.


End file.
